Xenon Invasion (X3:R)
Xenon Invasion (XI) is a mission found in the Bulletin Board System (BBS) in systems near to Xenon sectors. The greater your combat rank, the higher the difficulty of the mission. These missions can be very profitable. There also appears to be a minimum time between missions (12 hours?). I got my first XI mission at combat rank Warrior. I got my first XI mission with a jumping carrier at the next combat rank, Assassin. I'm now combat rank Warlord (8th from the top) and still haven't seen any tricks beyond that. Upon reaching Crusader rank (7th from the top) two jumping Xenon Js (carriers) get spawned. They don't spawn in at the same time. I've had up to two Ks spawn as well at the beginning but they cannot jump. By killing both Ks and both Js as well as many Ls, I've made over 30 million from one mission. Invadeable Sectors *'Getsu Fune' *'Menelaus' Paradise' *'Black Hole Sun' *'Eighteen Billion' *'Scale Plate Green' *'Thyn's Abyss' Example Missions Example Mission 01 The mission started in Getsu Fune with two Ks and about 20 Ls. There were perhaps 10 allied military ships spawned. I killed both Ks and 11 Ls and got paid 12,552,855 credits for the lot. Example Mission 02 This mission also started in Getsu Fune and was played at Vindicator combat level. It started with one K and a bunch of Ms. The K quickly took out a large solar array and I quickly took it down with my Bala Gi missions capital ship. A J promptly jumped in and kept jumping out again as fast as it could, bringing about 6 Ls with it every time. It jumped in every few minutes in around the same spot. It took me about 1 hour of real-time playing to finish this mission and I was awarded 10,004,099 credits for my 71 kills which included 1 J and 1 K as well as some Ms but mostly Ls. Tips For non-jumping missions, just having a strong ship like that one gets from the Bala Gi missions is enough. But when facing jumping Js one may have to face upwards of 50 Ls which can really whittle down the shields. If you're having trouble surviving you can try getting a bunch of drones and releasing some of them occasionally to draw away enemy fire. For catching the Js after they jump in it's very helpful to have an afterburner (you need the bonus pack to be able to purchase them). It's also very helpful to try to stay around the area where the J(s) jumped in last. They start charging their jump engines as soon as they jump in so one has about 20 seconds to bring down their shields and start doing hull damage to make any kind of lasting impact. Ramming them takes off a lot of their health without taking too much from the Bala Gi capital ship so it's also a good tactic. Also use the most powerful weapons on your front guns to bring down their shields quick. I use fast weapons with some bite, Alpha PACs, on my turrets to combat the Ms constantly flying around me. They're very effective against Ms but not so much against larger craft.